


Through My Words

by TheColorBlue



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, Marvel Adventures: Avengers
Genre: Gen, Multiplicity/Plurality, trauma-based multiplicity/plurality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hulk knows how to read (but prefers being read to) and Clint tries to be a bridge between Bruce and a Hulk who don't understand each other and can't internally communicate.</p><p>Characterization and backstory is a mix of different canons. Have some illustrations for what (initially) inspired the story: <a href="http://sweaterkittensahoy.tumblr.com/post/23895504638/im-not-sure-what-it-says-of-marvel-that-the-best">here</a> and <a href="http://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/23086933818/hulk-like-to-look-at-the-pictures">here</a> and <a href="http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/post/25557439186/doktorvondoom-incredible-hulk-611-this">here</a>. <b>Warnings</b> for Bruce's abusive father and some symptoms associated with trauma-based multiplicity/plurality or DID.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hulk

Hulk knew how to read. He just liked it better when he could hear someone reading to him instead.

\--

Hulk remembered being born, maybe. He remembered waking up one day because Banner’s father—always Banner’s, never Hulk’s—had struck Banner so hard that he was on the floor and there was blood streaming from his nose. Banner was crying. Their mother-- _their_ mother, always both rather than only one’s—had tried to protect them and then Banner’s father was hitting her too. Banner was crying and Hulk was in a rage. This was before Hulk had a name, or even a feeling of having a body, and Hulk hadn’t been able to push through. Hulk had raged and screamed and then Banner was screaming too and then maybe Banner’s father had hit them again because Hulk couldn’t remember much after that. 

Hulk had raged, and then sunk down in despair, and sometimes he was awake, and sometimes he wasn’t. He was awake when they had to face Banner’s father, who hated them. He was also awake, though, when Banner was hiding in the public library and reading picture books. Banner was smart. He was really smart. He could have been reading from books about science, or the story books for older kids, but sometimes he hunkered down in the picture books section and stared at the colors of them without really looking at them. Hulk read for them. He read slowly and in a stumbling way—and that was when Banner started hating him too. He hated when Hulk came out because Hulk made Banner feel like—be afraid that—he was actually stupid, deep inside, and sometimes when Hulk was out Banner couldn’t remember things, and Banner hated Hulk without even knowing that Hulk was really there, and before Hulk had a name. 

Hulk had crouched down, snarling, inside their head, and then it was hard to tell who was the one pulling the books down from the shelves and throwing them on the floor and screaming, and then they hadn’t been able to go back to the library for a very long time. 

\--

Hulk remembered being born for real. He remembered waking up one day in a body that _felt like his_ , and maybe it might have been painful and frightening and wonderful all at once—except at the very same time there were men trying to kill him. There was so much noise, and smoke, and things burning and falling, and Hulk had roared and tried to get away. He smashed things and tried to get away. 

\--

After Banner joined the Avengers—and Hulk had joined on a technicality—the Avengers generally left Hulk alone after missions, as long as he didn’t smash things, if he came back with them quietly. Hulk wasn’t stupid, even though sometimes it felt like he was, and the agonizing frustration of it made Hulk want to grind his teeth together and smash things some more. But Hulk knew that sometimes there were things he was allowed to do, and things that he wasn’t, and he came back with the Avengers quietly, and wandered around the mansion aimlessly until Banner woke up again. 

One day, Hulk found the Iron Man’s library, and Hawkeye was in there.

Hawkeye, for a moment, had stood there and looked at Hulk like he had caught him doing something humiliating, but then the expression had smoothed itself away into a wry, more familiar quirk of Hawkeye’s mouth. 

“Oh,” he said. “It’s only you big guy.” 

Hulk had lumbered over, and Hawkeye had let him, until Hulk could read the title of Hawkeye’s book. He had read it out loud, his mouth forming the words clumsily, “ _The Adventures of Robin Hood and His Merry Men._ ” 

Hawkeye had looked up at Hulk in surprise. “Hey, you can read.” 

Hulk bared his teeth, then growled, “Hulk dumb, but not _that_ dumb.”

Hawkeye looked at Hulk, then at the book, and then back at Hulk. There was a thoughtful expression on his face. “You know,” he said slowly. “I’ll let you in on a secret.” He seemed to wait a moment, as if to see if Hulk was interested. Hulk didn’t move, so Hawkeye went on, “Well, okay: for a long time, I couldn’t read very well either. See, I ran away from a foster home to join the circus—and they don’t exactly teach you Shakespeare in the circus. It wasn’t until I joined SHIELD that they made me start taking remedial classes.” Hawkeye put his book under his arm, then said. “Hey, if you want, you can grab a book and sit with me here. I could, ah—well, if you want to keep me company or whatever.”

Hulk hesitated. He huffed out a breath at last and asked, “Hawkeye read to Hulk instead?” Then, when Hawkeye still looked a little confused, Hulk added, “Please?” 

Hawkeye blinked, then said, “Uh, sure. I mean, that’s cool with me.” They went to sit by the windows. “Hey, how about just calling me Clint? We’re friends here, right?”

Hulk sat down next to Hawkeye and the floor trembled with the movement. “Friend Clint,” Hulk said. 

Clint patted Hulk on the knee, brazenly, and Hulk snorted out a laugh. 

\---

They fought together, Hulk and Clint. They worked together well on the team, and they watched each other’s backs on the field. Hulk began to like the other Avengers too, but he liked Clint most of all. 

Six months after Banner and Hulk had joined the Avengers, Clint saved Hulk’s life.

Banner had finally found what he thought was a real cure for his gamma-radiation problem, and Hulk would have dismissed the idea as another failed attempt except it wasn’t. Hulk could feel it the next time he came out in his own body. He felt weaker. He smashed the robot monster they had been fighting, but afterwards crouched down in the concrete, winded and weak. 

Clint had come running over, “Hulk! Hulk, what’s wrong?”

Hulk looked up at Clint. He felt afraid. “Banner trying to kill Hulk. Banner’s serum working.”

Hulk saw Clint’s hand tighten on his bow, before Hulk had passed out. 

\---

Apparently, Clint punched Banner in the face, later at the mansion. 

\---

A week passed, and Banner seemed to have been convinced to at least temporarily suspend his serum-treatment, and Clint sat with Hulk in the library. They had been on patrol in the city together, and now were resting for the afternoon. Clint was flipping through some TIMES magazines without apparently reading them much. Hulk was reading an abridged version of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ while listening to an audio recording using extra-large earphones. 

Hulk looked down when he felt Clint tap him on the knee. Hulk took off his earphones, gently. He didn’t want to have to ask Tony for another pair already. 

“Okay, we need to talk,” Clint said. “I convinced Bruce to wait on his treatment, but I wanted to make sure you were feeling okay before I told you how it went down.”

Hulk nodded. “Hulk listening,” he said. 

“Okay,” Clint said. “Okay.” He stood up, paced a little, then said, “I guess I always knew that Bruce didn’t like you much, but apparently he’s a very repressed man who had to wait until I was in his face about it until he blew up and spilled everything. He said I didn’t know what it was like, and how dare I—yeah, like that’s any surprise but—Christ, he said I didn’t know what it was like not to have a life to yourself. How he hated the black-outs, losing himself to you and waking up sometimes who knew where. And, yeah, he knew that the Hulk hadn’t gone on a rampage or anything for a long time—but then what did it matter, because he’s one of the smartest guys around too, right? Couldn’t he just focus on his science and helping the Avengers that way? Especially with some of our new guys on the team, Ms. Marvel even just by herself—did we really need the Hulk around that badly?” 

Clint ran his hands through his hair in an agitation. “He was—really upset. I guess I never knew.”

Hulk just looked at Clint. “Banner being selfish,” Hulk said flatly. “Hulk doesn’t want to die.”

“Hey, easy there. I think—you’re right too, that’s what I said to him. But I think it’s… really more complicated than that too. Have you ever tried to talk to Banner?”

Hulk said, “Banner can’t hear Hulk in our head. Sometimes Hulk hear Banner, but not always.”

Clint scratched his head. “Huh, well. Not the most conducive to people talking things over, but we can figure out something.” Clint wandered away to the antique desk at the other end of the enormous room. Hulk looked back down at this book, at the illustrations done in black and white. 

Clint came back with a few sheets of white copy paper and a fat green marker. 

“Okay, big guy. I want you to write Bruce a note. A _friendly ___note.”

Hulk made a face. “Banner hate Hulk. Hulk have nothing to say.”

“Don’t make me come up there and punch some common-sense into that thick green skull.”

Hulk frowned at Clint, and then huffed out a sigh. “Hulk not know what to say.”

Clint was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Maybe, say that you’d want to try being friends with Banner. It’s how we started, right? Just trying to be friends.”

Hulk was still scowling, but he crouched down and laboriously began to write a note. He was careful not to tear the paper or break the marker between his fingers. When he was done, three pages later, he scowled down at the large, crude handwriting. “Look like kid wrote note. _Dumb_ kid.” 

Clint picked up the papers and marker. “Hey,” he said cheerfully, “you’re not dumb, and people love kids. Kids are the best.” He folded the papers over, and then put the square of it in his pocket. “I’ll give this to Bruce when he comes out—which will probably be soon, won’t it?”

Hulk shrugged. Usually he could stay out for a few hours after a mission—but eventually, sooner or later, Banner would wake up and Hulk would have to go back down. 

They waited together. 

“Why Clint sad?” Hulk asked after a while.

Clint wasn’t reading magazines anymore, but was sitting next to Hulk, leaning against one large, green leg. 

“Huh?”

“Clint look sad.”

Clint looked like he didn’t want to answer that one, but, “Oh. Well, I don’t know,” Clint said. Then he admitted, “I’m just sorry I couldn’t fix this for you. And for Bruce. I mean, in a real way, and not just keeping Bruce from—and then asking you to—and, anyway, just hoping for the best.”

“Clint always do enough,” Hulk said, meaning it. “Clint Hulk’s friend.” 

Clint looked at Hulk, smiling a little, with only a trace of his usual cockiness, and then he was looking away. And for some reason now, Hulk didn’t want to try to hang on to this waking moment anymore. He felt tired and, strangely, a little sad, and he closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to come, and for someone else to open their eyes in that library.


	2. Bruce

Clint was sitting across from him on the floor in the library, and he slid the packet of folded paper across the ornamental carpet saying, “This is from Hulk,” before standing up and wandering a little ways farther down the room. He opened the French doors that went out onto a balcony, and seemed to peer out intently at nothing in particular. 

Bruce looked down at the paper for a moment, bewildered, before picking it up carefully. The paper was a little scrunched up in places where someone’s very large hands had applied pressure. Scrawled across three pages, in essentially grade-school penmanship was the sentence: _Hulk offer be friends._

Bruce looked up then, wanting to yell at Clint, “What are you trying to play at, Hawkeye?” but Clint, in his foresight, had used the balcony as an escape route. Bruce stood up and looked outside. There was Clint on the lawn, two stories down. Clint looked back up at him and waved. 

Bruce started to ball up the paper into a wad, and then stopped, for some reason. Instead, he folded the paper up and stuffed it into the space between two books on the library shelves. He didn’t bother to look at the book spines, turning then to make his way back to his lab. 

He just wanted to be left alone. 

Goddamn Hawkeye. 

\--

Bruce was in his late thirties, not particularly well-muscled, and wore glasses. He sometimes thought he looked like a high school science teacher; there was nothing striking or heroic about Bruce Banner’s appearance. He’d seen some of the footage of Hulk, and it was weird. Hulk looked nothing like him. To be clear, there was some resemblance in the facial features, but it was as though even with that, Hulk used their muscles differently. Everything about him was different from Bruce, larger-than-life, and alien in feeling. 

Bruce had spent so many years searching for a cure for the Hulk. Now he had one, and Clint was trying to come in and screw with his head. _Goddamn Hawkeye._

Bruce sat at his lab bench in front of his computers, running the diagnostics over again, all the components of the cure, the analysis of how it would affect his cells and DNA. Whenever Bruce thought of Hulk, he thought about himself as a kid. He thought about his going into screaming rages, even then, even before the gamma radiation had hit his system. He thought about his father, the shadow of a monster raising a hand against his mother, against him. 

A week ago, Clint had followed him into the lab and then punched him, yelling, “You have no right to...to just _get rid of Hulk now_ , not after everything’s he’s done for us, for the team!”

The Hulk was never supposed to exist, Bruce thought. Not back when he was a kid, and certainly not now. Bruce closed the programs on his computer, and then looked at the black surface of the lab bench. But what really took the cake? Bruce could tell: Clint cared about Hulk. Clint cared about Hulk a lot. This—this whatever Hulk was, this mass of alternatively firing neurons and gamma-radiated DNA, whatever Hulk was—Bruce still did not know who or what this Hulk was, and Clint _cared about Hulk_ , when on any other day he probably wouldn’t have had two sentences for Bruce Banner. 

This should have been fine. It should have been normal, because Bruce kept to himself most of the time, really. Bruce was alone, and he just wanted to be left alone, and he wished, growing more and more agitated with the thought of it, that Clint would _just leave him alone_ \--

\---

_Clint sat up from where he’d been lying under a tree, and not actually napping._

_-Hey buddy! What are you doing out here again?_

_Hulk felt confused._

_-Hulk doesn’t know._

_-Huh. Well that’s weird. Wonder how…well, anyway. Hey, you can come with me if you want. Was just going to head to the kitchen to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches._

_-Hulk likes peanut butter._

_-Yeah, I know big guy._

\---

Bruce was working in the lab the next day—doing research on AIM biotechnology they’d encountered recently—when Clint sauntered in, carrying a large, brown paper bag that smelled like curry spices. 

Bruce looked up and then said automatically, “For Pete’s sake, Clint, no food in the lab!” Then he said, “What are you even doing here?”

“I brought lunch,” Clint said, holding his hands up a little like a peace offering, the brown bag held up too. “Figured I’d find you here. Besides, everyone else is out. Cap and Tony ‘went out for burgers’—who do they think they’re kidding—and Giant Girl and Storm are out too. Thought you might, umm, want company?”

Bruce crossed his arms and gave Clint a narrow look. “I know you’ve got ulterior motives, Clint, I’m not stupid.”

“Woah there, it’s just take-out Bruce,” Clint said. “I swear I haven’t come to—huh, well let’s see. Well, I definitely haven’t come here to knock you out and sabotage your lab, if that’s something running through your head. Everyone else around here would just about kill me. Well, if we can’t eat in here, you could… come with me to somewhere we can? We could hang out. Or, well, something.” 

“I ought to—“

“Before you say it, I know you can’t threaten to hulk out on me. Hulk and I are buds, obviously.”

Now Bruce just felt tired, of all of this. “What do you want, Clint?”

Clint had the grace then to look a little guilty, or embarrassed, or something. “Well if you want me to be honest. I just—I feel a little weird now, because I don’t want you to think I’ve got—well, favoritism or something going on. I just barely know you.” 

Then, “I’m sorry, about the other day. I mean, I said sorry then, but I wanted to say it again. You’re right, I don’t know what it is like in your head, but you don’t know Hulk either. If you knew him, you couldn’t hate him.”

Clint talked about Hulk like he was a different person. Bruce didn’t even know _what_ Hulk was—if he was some fragment of a split personality, or some other kind of entity that periodically possessed him. He didn’t know what Hulk was, and even now, thinking about it, it made him feel sick inside, but Bruce was used to schooling his thoughts behind an expressionless face.

“Why do you care so much about Hulk?” Bruce managed to ask instead. 

Clint shrugged, breaking eye contact. He didn’t reply immediately, and when he did, it was to say, “He’s like a kid, you know? Or maybe you don’t, but maybe—a little bit, he makes me think of myself as a kid, and also not. I just know that he’s always thinking about things, even if he doesn’t have the words to talk about it. Actually, you know what, he’s only like a kid in that I’m pretty sure he lets himself feel things one hundred percent without the stupid garbage a lot of us let get in the way of feeling things, and I can’t turn my back on a guy like that. I can’t.”

“I’ve read your file,” Bruce said. “I wouldn’t have expected you to say anything this trite about childhood innocence.” 

“I’m not so sure innocent would be the right word for Hulk,” Clint remarked. He shifted the weight of his paper bag from one hand to the other. “Anyway—I mean, whatever, I didn’t come here to try to rile you up, honest. I’ll leave you alone now, it’s fine, just let me know if you ever want to grab lunch together or something.”

Clint sidled forward and deposited a carton of take-away on the stool next to Bruce, before going away again. Bruce watched him leave, and then he tried to take in a calming breath—deep inhale, and exhale.

The carton sat untouched on the stool. The scent of the curry was warm and spicy and seemed to fill the whole room.


	3. Bruce

Hulk and Clint were sitting on the floor in the mansion’s rec room. Clint was fiddling with his Starkphone. 

“Okay, buddy, new plan. I think, it’d be the wrong idea to push Bruce at this point—but, in the long run of it, I want to start…I guess a kind of record? I just want a video record of you being you. Maybe it’ll help, at some point.” Clint looked into the camera and smiled big. “Mission log, star-date…whatever, okay, it’s actually eight twenty-six two-thousand twelve, so what did we do today, big guy?”

He swung the video recorder round to focus on Hulk.

Hulk frowned at the puny phone. “Hulk smash monster in the harbor,” he said at last. “Steve and Peter fought monster too. Also Clint.”

“Then afterwards we went out for ice cream,” Clint added. 

“Clint got Hulk pistachio ice cream.” Hulk managed to smile then, sort of awkward, but also sincere. Clint was looking down at his phone, but he was smiling too, and strangely fond with it. 

Then, “For all those lovely lady viewers out there, our Hulk also loves reading romantic novels and taking long walks on the beach—“

“ _Clint_.”

“Don’t be fooled by the frowny-face act, deep down inside Hulk’s actually a huge, fluffy—okay! Okay, I take it back, Hulk don’t smash the phone, I swear to God—“

Hulk made as if he was going to toss the phone out the window, but he didn’t. 

\---

When Bruce woke up—the usual pattern of disorientation and uncertainty of where he was and how he’d gotten there, Clint put on a big smile and said, “Hey, you. We just came back from a mission a few hours ago. CNN is still running footage from the fight if you want to see it, but otherwise we have the rest of the afternoon off, barring the usual emergencies.”

Bruce nodded to show that he was listening, but he wasn’t quite looking at Clint. He heard Clint sigh, and then say, “Well, see you around.” 

Bruce said, “Yeah, bye.”

And then Clint was out the window. Again.

Bruce closed the window after the archer had gone. 

Bruce Banner spent his afternoon off by going down to the local market and picking up groceries. He bought blueberries, carrots, and cherry vanilla yogurt. He bought sliced chicken breast to cook with vegetables in a stir fry. 

While he cooked in the mansion’s large kitchen, Tigra wandered in and sat down on a stool and watched him like a relaxed and inquisitive ginger cat. She didn’t say anything except for the initial hello, and somehow the quiet was…nice. Bruce didn’t mind Tigra in the kitchen, and he didn’t want to talk. When his meal was done cooking, he watched the way she eyed the pan, and served out two plates along with hot rice. She beamed at him, said thank you, and then proceeded to shamelessly eat everything he’d plated out for her, and then go on for seconds. Inbetween plates, she went over to the far counter, pulled out a box of what turned out to be pastries from the nearby bakery, and offered them to Bruce. Bruce helped himself to a fruit tart. 

She said, tail swishing back and forth, and still not finished stuffing her face with seconds of Asian stir-fry, “You know, it’s weird watching you eat dinner—because just two hours ago, Hulk and Clint were in here making these piles of ridiculously elaborate sandwiches on French bread. Crazy stuff. I don’t know where you’re packing it in.”

Bruce shrugged. He pushed baby corn and water chestnut across his plate with a spoon, and then scooped it up and ate it. 

“You don’t talk much do you?” Tigra asked brightly. “I hardly see you except when you come in here to eat—Peter says you live in your lab, nearly, and don’t bother you because you like your privacy—and Hulk is always being buddy-buddy with Clint or whatever. I hardly ever see him either. Is he like you, or is he you except green and huge? I’ve seen him with stray cats. They’re not afraid of him at all, when he’s sitting down and quiet. We found a box of strays the other day, did you know that? They went right up to him, _mew mew mew_. That’s when I figured I wasn’t too afraid of him either. Even though he’s huge, and green, and barely talks to anyone except Clint. I guess maybe he is like you except I’m not sure who you talk to, unless it’s Clint also. Hey. Hey Bruce. Do you like cats?”

“You’re new to the team, aren’t you?” Bruce asked instead of answering. His tone was all dryness. “You’ve been with us for, what, two weeks now?”

“Twelve days,” Tigra announced proudly. Then she made a big production out of licking her plate clean, which made Bruce pretty sure she was only doing it to get a reaction out of him. 

“That’s disgusting,” is what he said. 

“It’s a gesture of appreciation,” Tigra said. “Dinner was delicious. Delectable.”

She went to put her plate in the sink, and then went back to her seat. She put her chin down on the table and looked up at him. 

“I was talking to Steve and Clint. Clint was saying that you had wanted to get rid of the Hulk.” She rattled on, “Clint was upset, but Steve said that the choice should have been up to you. The Avengers aren’t in the business of forcing people to be supers if they don’t want to be.” She looked up at Bruce as if expecting a response to that. When she didn’t get one, she said, “What’s it like being the Hulk? Is it really that awful?”

Bruce wasn’t sure what to say. He spun his spoon through trails of teriyaki sauce. “It’s complicated,” he admitted. “To be honest, and especially before coming here: it's... not _being_ the Hulk that's terrible. It's. It's waking up in strange places, sometimes without clothes or money or anything at all. It's wondering what has happened while I was out, and what has been destroyed. It's, was--" He stumbled for a moment. "Sometimes it's feeling like I've lost everything, that I don't even own my own body. That's the worst of it, I think. Feeling like I've lost my own body to something I don't and can never really know.”

Tigra was looking at Bruce with large, intent eyes. Belatedly, Bruce realized: this was more than he’d ever told nearly anyone else. Willingly, anyway. Clint had pried the truth out of him with a crowbar, and Bruce was still angry about that. 

Tigra was just a kid, really. Maybe that was what it was. She looked like she was at least a decade younger than him. _At least_. Maybe that youthful earnestness made it somehow easier to blurt out things he wouldn’t have said to a peer—but then again. If it had been Peter hounding him about his personal life…

Then Tigra said, “Hey, hey Bruce. Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Maybe,” Bruce hedged. 

“You’re not—you’re really not in a relationship with Clint, are you? Like secretly.”

“What?” Bruce asked. “No! Absolutely not.” 

“Oh,” Tigra said easily, “Well, okay, that’s fine.”

“I’m not even a little bit interested in that guy,” Bruce said, and disgruntled with it. 

“Okay, I believe you. I can smell it when someone’s lying—hahah, actually I’m kidding! Heheheh.” She rocked back and forth a little on her stool, like doing a little dance. “Jokes aside though, sometimes I wonder about Hulk and Clint, you know? But _you_ and Clint—it’s a completely different story, I don’t even know. It’s weird. But interesting!” Tigra smiled, and Bruce did not know what to say, because he had already known. 

“I guess it’s not like Cap and Tony then,” Tigra went on. “They deny it up and down, but _everybody_ knows—“

“Tigra.”

“Okay, okay. No more gossiping about the bosses.” 

As if to emphasize her sincerity, she reached into the pastry box and stuffed an apple and cheese pastry into her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The appearance of Tigra and also cherry vanilla yogurt was inspired by Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #30, which can be read free online at [the official Marvel site](http://marvel.com/digital_comics/issue/11192/marvel_adventures_the_avengers_2006_30).  
> I'm pretty sure I've taken enormous liberties with Tigra's characterization though.


	4. Tigra

Tigra decided that she was going to “investigate” the Hulk and Hawkeye dynamic duo. When an emergency call came in, later in the week, about a museum robbery instigated by the Serpent Society, Hulk came out for some exercise, and Hawkeye accompanied, and Tigra volunteered herself to scurry along after them.

They didn’t actually need her help. In fact, they didn’t even seem to notice her until after the Serpent Society had been turned over to SHIELD custody, and then Tigra saw them doing something with Hawkeye’s phone. She’d been watching from across the street, perched on a third floor balcony.

Tigra climbed down to street level, and then meandered over to where Hawkeye and Hulk were doing some kind of video recording.

Police officers had blocked off the street. Debris and broken glass littered the street. There were the usual gawkers and onlookers just outside the barricade, but Tigra didn’t pay them any mind, and the police officers didn’t pay her any mind either. 

Tigra said, standing next to Hawkeye now, “Cap doesn’t require video records of our mission reports. Or did I miss something?”

Hawkeye looked up at her, and then frowned. “Hey, sport. A little late for the party, aren’t you?”

Tigra shrugged. “You guys looked like you had it covered.” Then she said, looking directly at Hulk, “Hulk, I’m impressed. Minimal property damage and everything.”

“Hulk practicing control,” Hulk said. He seemed, to Tigra’s eyes, strangely calm. Peaceful, even. 

Tigra sniffed his arm—there was a pleasant, nearly earthy smell that was much fainter when detected on Banner, and then she said, “Hulk, I’m going to climb on your back now, is that okay?”

Hulk’s expression went dry then, smiling a little with it, and Tigra laughed in near-surprise, while Clint spluttered, “What?” but by then Tigra had already leapt up to Clint’s usual perch, legs hooked round Hulks shoulders and chin resting on Hulk’s head. She grinned down at Clint. “So watcha doing?” She asked. 

“ _Tigra._ ”

“I’m a cat!” Tigra announced. “Hulk loves cats, I’ve seen it.” Hulk's hair was really soft. She patted it with her hands. Then she said, “You never told me what you were up to.”

“You’re a nosy little whippersnapper aren’t you?” Clint grumbled. “Kids these days. No respect for their elders. Okay, whatever, we’re done here anyway.”

He turned off the video-recording, and then held up his phone so that Tigra could see it. “I’m making Hulk a video journal, or whatever you want to call it.”

Tigra peered down to see what Hulk had to say about this.

“Hulk doesn’t care,” Hulk admitted. 

“It’s for Banner, really,” Clint said. He stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Well, someday, at least, if he ever gets more comfortable with the idea of Hulk running around like this. I’m hoping it’ll help him get a handle on his blackouts.”

Tigra pondered this. Her hands were around Hulk’s neck now. His skin was really warm. It felt nice. 

“I read about something like that,” Tigra said. “I mean, not exactly, but the idea reminds me of it. Using video recordings or photograph snapshots from the whole day to help Alzheimer’s patients.” 

Now Clint looked really surprised.

“I read it in TIMES,” Tigra said. “Anyway, let’s go home, all these people staring make me want to put on a coat or something. A big one.”

\---

They went back to the mansion, and Tigra sat on Hulk’s shoulders while he followed Clint straight for the kitchen. Clint got out a big pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and poured out three tall glasses of the stuff. Tigra slid down to help herself to a glass. 

It was weird watching Hulk and Clint, but kind of weird-cool. Hulk was gentle around Clint. When Clint handed him the glass, Hulk was careful not to break it, and nearly delicate with it while he tipped back what was really only a mouthful of lemonade for him. He held out his glass for more, and Clint refilled it. 

Leaning over the kitchen island, Tigra tried to parse out some iota of Bruce’s person in the Hulk, and she couldn’t find it. 

She wondered what it was like, being in that body. 

\--

Three hours later, Tigra was pouring lemonade for Bruce. 

They were up in the rec room, an empty bowl of popcorn on the floor, and the nearly empty pitcher of lemonade in Tigra’s hand. For a moment, Bruce looked at the glass uncomprehendingly, before drinking it down. They were on the floor, because Hulk was too big for the couch, except now Clint was sitting nestled in a corner of the couch like a bird, and looking away from Tigra and Bruce. 

They had been watching a film version of _The Count of Monte Cristo_. Apparently, Hulk had just finished reading/listening to the book, and Clint said he had a weakness for a good swashbuckling film, and Tigra had tagged along. It was for “investigative purposes” she would had said, if asked, but really she had just been having fun too. 

Well, okay, also she was still investigating. She kept looking back at Hulk during the movie, to see how a guy like him would take in a movie like this, but Hulk seemed completely absorbed in the story. Also, at some point, Clint ended up in Hulk’s lap like Hulk was a couch or something. Tigra joined them, and Clint didn’t even seem to mind, which was great because Tigra found the whole set-up very cozy. Tigra was a cat. She liked lying on people when she could get away with it. 

Except then the film had ended, and Tigra had to climb out to go find another movie. She pulled a DVD from the shelf and then turned around to ask if they could watch Disney’s _Robin Hood_ next when she saw that Clint had sat up to brush a soft, chaste kiss to the skin of Hulk’s hand. It was weird. It was also sweet. Tigra averted her eyes, mindful of privacy, but then in the next moment Clint was making a sharp noise and jumping up because suddenly Bruce was there, wearing the strangest expression. 

So Tigra fed him lemonade. When he was finished, Bruce put down his empty lemonade glass. He said, finally looking at Clint, “Hulk cares about you. I _felt_ that.” He made it sound like the words were being forced out of him. He didn’t even sound angry. He seemed almost scared, but of what it wasn’t clear, and he made as if to get up, except Tigra stopped him by throwing herself inelegantly, and heavily, over his lap. “Tigra, _get off_ \--“

“Nuh-uh, nope, not going to,” Tigra said into the carpet. “Anyway, did you hear what you just said? You felt something that Hulk felt. I thought you said that Hulk was completely cut off from the ‘you’ side of things.”

Bruce stopped struggling under her. When she peeked up at him, she saw that his expression was a little devastated. She reached over and took his hand and tried to rub it consolingly. She was trying to figure this out as she went along. 

“I’d like you to stay and watch _Robin Hood_ with us,” she said. “You can say no, if you want and I’ll get up, but. You know, I’d _really_ like it if you stayed.”

She could feel Bruce take in a shaky breath, and then let it out. He didn’t move. 

Tigra did though. She stood up to put the movie in, and to grab the remote. The she went back to where she had been sitting before, except now lying down to use Bruce’s thigh as a pillow. He didn’t tell her that she couldn’t. 

Bruce was sitting with his back to the couch. Clint had sprawled out so that he hadn’t technically moved closer, but also he was. The DVD was in the machine, but Tigra didn’t start the movie right away. She let it sit on the menu screen, and she said, “My name isn’t actually Tigra. I mean, outside the costumed-hero thing going on. I know that’s what I’ve been telling everybody to call me all the time, but it isn’t Tigra, it’s Greer. Greer Grant Nelson.”

There was a moment in which no one spoke. Then Clint asked, “You have a preference?” 

“Tigra’s good with me,” Tigra said diffidently. “But I just wanted to tell you guys. And you can call me Greer, if you want.” She smiled. “I guess it would feel kind of cool. You know, secretive and everything.”

She selected the film to play. A rooster in a medieval-style illustrated book talked a little about the legend of Robin Hood, and then they watched costumed animals parade across the screen. Tigra wondered if Clint was going to make any commentary on the archery bits of the movie, and actually she was kind of looking forward to that. 

“It’s—a pretty name,” Bruce said quietly from above her. “Greer.”

Tigra pawed at his hand, gently. Then she snuggled a little closer and thought about how thirteen days ago she had been living all alone, and now she didn’t, and she wasn’t going to let anyone in this house live alone either, not without asking first if they would stay.


	5. Misc. Notes

**Multiplicity & DID**

Ehhh, I've gotten into the habit of not liking to explain myself sometimes, but it might be worth noting that the depiction of what I've called here trauma-based multiplicity or DID is based on or inspired by readings, video clips, talking a bit with someone who had worked as a mental health counselor and had direct contact with patients diagnosed with DID, and then my own conjecture based on all that stuff I've had limited exposure to rather than any personal experience. On the other end of it, I've also gotten to know a few different groups of non-trauma multiples as personal friends. 

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), as it's presently called, is still really poorly understood in the field of health and science. Actually, I've heard stuff like how a lot of the rest of the psychology communities in the world often say North America made up this diagnosis, which is kind of silly when I've found records of DID cases in England dating back to the early part of the last century, and also there's a Portuguese Poet called Fernando Pessoa, also from the early part of the last century, whose personal records indicate that he might very well have had experiences of what I'll call here the non-trauma-based end of the multiplicity spectrum. Even today, I've seen sites where they say stuff like there are quips about how the four greatest modern poets of Portugal are Fernando Pessoa, and there's some great stories about how the other guys liked to (harmlessly) troll Fernando... 

Anyway, someday there may well be a "respectable" book or research done about DID and/or multiplicity that really tries to address the range and variation of the spectrum in a sophisticated way (maybe like Oliver Sacks' works?), but that day is not today, unfortunately, and so if you try to look up more about any of these topics, I'd mention to proceed with care. There's good stuff out there, and also wierd stuff. I try to collect the stuff I like on a blog linked in my AO3 profile. Otherwise, I try not to get too chatty about all of this. For the most part, if you're coming across my writing hereabouts, multiplicity is either going to be relevant to you or it's not. And if it's not, you're probably here for Avengers-style entertainment, which is fine with me too =) I'm mostly here to roll around in adoration for charming characters like Hulk and Tigra and the whole lot of them anyway.

I think my final take-away note from all of this is that--yes, this is fanfiction, there's going to be obviously fantastical elements like the shape-shifting of Hulk and Banner, but I wanted to also leave some commentary about how there is some basis in reality when talking about these kinds of things.

\---

**Tigra**

I don't even know. She infiltrated Chap3 as a character I had originally intended to be a random passer-by/cameo from the Marvel Adventures: The Avengers, and then she completely took over the end/Chap4.


	6. Rainy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...I guess this is kind of a sequel.

Yesterday, the Avengers had gone out to fight giant robots in the harbor, and this morning Bruce had sat at the kitchen table reviewing the footage. Tigra ate frosted flakes noisily, and tried not to look too much like she was watching Bruce watching the videos. She was learning how to be a good spy, she was. She could hear audio playback of Clint and Hulk’s tomfoolery even from where she was sitting though, Clint cracking jokes or shouting at Hulk to watch his back, and Hulk responding in kind. Tigra scrunched some more through her sugar-coated cornflakes. When others started arriving in the kitchen—Storm, Wolverine, even Cap coming in for his usual hearty breakfast—Bruce took his tablet. and his toast and eggs, and went out. 

It had been a week since Bruce had really started being receptive to the idea of accepting Hulk a little more, and learning a little more about the other guy. 

Tigra stayed sitting at the kitchen table and pawed a bit at her checks, and then thought: it made her sad that Bruce was still sad. He wasn’t happy. This was all still processing for him, and sometimes she had urges like wanting to paw at Bruce a little, and be a cat, and try to cheer him up that way. Maybe that was weird. Gosh, she should have picked a different superhero name: forget Tigra, she could have been the Orange Tabby and it would have all amounted to the same. 

She licked a little at the back of her hand in an anxious way, until she felt Peter looking at her. 

She gave him the side-eye then, and also a playful swipe, which he easily danced away from. 

\--

That day, it rained. 

It rained buckets. 

In the early afternoon, Clint had the bright idea of putting on swimming trunks, and then getting Hulk to put on swimming trunks, and then they went outside to do whatever it was that people did when it was raining. Tigra didn’t know much about all of that. She stayed inside, watching the rain patter outside, and shuddered a little before curling up. She liked being inside, and warm, and dry. 

Outside, the two of them were sitting on the steps leading up to the patio. Hulk had this quiet look to him, all the rainwater getting onto him and making his hair hang down; Clint was sitting on Hulk’s thigh and leaning against his chest, also looking very relaxed.

Yeah, sometimes Tigra wondered about those two. 

They had been running around earlier like a pair of hooligans, kicking up puddles, and now they were just sitting around, like maybe just feeling the rainwater patter patter down was enough reason to stay out there. Maybe because it was also summertime, it felt nice to them. 

Tigra didn’t know a lot about things like that. 

She thought about it, and then thought about it some more, and then she got up, hopping lightly to her feet.

When the pair of them came back inside, Bruce might want to come out. Maybe he wouldn’t like waking up suddenly all wet and in too-big swimming trunks. She’d get towels and juice. She’d get a package of Bruce’s favorite multi-grain crackers. Hmm, maybe she could see Bruce smiling then. Like, even though he’d be waking up to something he didn’t even remember walking into, there’d be someone waiting on the other side: with towels, and crackers, and pawing at him a bit like the cat that she was. 

Tigra scampered off for the linen closet upstairs, and hoped she could make it back on time before anyone came back in and dripped wet all over everything.


	7. Rainy Day 2

Nine-thirty that evening found Tigra sitting on the couch with another bowl of frosted flakes (she’d been on a cereal spree lately) and watching Adventure Time on television. Clint was on the other couch, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and curled up asleep. He’d been on patrol that whole afternoon, and apparently had gotten into an altercation with Hydra agents or some such. Tigra had spent the afternoon training with Logan. She felt a little like a limp noodle right then.

Peter Parker came up behind the couch, resting his elbows on the top of it as he watched what she was watching, or whatever he was doing, Tigra didn’t turn around to see. She could smell him, though, so she knew for sure it was him. 

“Have you ever considered going into cereal advertising?” Peter asked. He pointed to the cereal box on the coffee table in front of her, his hand now visible in her peripheral vision. Tigra looked down at her bowl, and then at the box of cereal. _Tony the Tiger_ was obvious on the front of it.

“ _Get out of here_ ,” Tigra said, batting at Peter’s hand. “Don’t you have school or something tomorrow?” 

Peter laughed, and then ambled away. 

Tigra continued to shovel down cereal as she watched children’s cartoons; this was a free country, goshdarnit, she could do what she liked. 

\--

Ten o’clock, and her cartoons over, Tigra got up, and took her empty bowl and the half-full cereal box back to the kitchen. Clint was still sleeping on the couch where’d she’d left him. 

In the kitchen, Tigra tapped her chin a little, and then decided to go see what Bruce was up to. 

\--

She spied through the window in the lab door when she got there. 

Bruce was at his lab bench, but he’d got a large book or something in front of him that he was reading. 

Tigra did a little tap dance on the window with the tips of her claws, and Bruce looked up then, startled. He stared at her for a moment, through the window, before finally waving a hand in invitation. Tigra let herself into the lab. 

“Bruuuceee,” she sang. “Banner Banner Banner—“

She skipped over to where he was sitting, and then peered down at his book. 

It was a large sketchbook with spiral binding. Childish, large handwriting done with markers scrawled over the pages. Tigra looked over at Bruce, and then she laid down a hand to flip through. 

She read:

 _Today, Hulk saved a puppy. The puppy was very nice and didn’t run away from Hulk._

On the next pages:

_Hulk likes frozen yogurt. Clint gave Hulk cherry frozen yogurt after we took the puppy to it’s home._

_Hulk likes Clint, because Clint is nice to Hulk._

_Hulk likes also Tigra, because Tigra is nice, too. Tigra also purrs when Hulk pets her head._ Hmmm, yeah, Tigra remembered that. It wasn’t her fault that she wore her affections on her sleeve. There were accompanying drawings too; crude drawings, but sort of cute, really. 

Beside her, Bruce took a pen out of her lab coat pocket. Tigra scooted over. He flipped to the next blank page and wrote, in large, neat hand-writing: 

_This is very nice. Thank you for sharing, Hulk._

_-Bruce_

He put the pen back into his pocket and then stared down at what he’d written. 

Tigra, impulsively, sort of butted at Bruce’s arm a little with her head, and Bruce reached up to scrunch his fingers through her hair. 

It felt nice. 

“Hey,” someone said from the door. 

Clint was standing just inside the lab now, his phone in one hand and held up. Tigra thought of someone presenting their arms, demonstrating good intent. 

He said, “You guys want pizza? I was feeling hungry, again, so. You know.”

Tigra looked up at Bruce from under his hand. 

“I don’t even think Bruce had dinner today,” she said, a little accusingly. 

Bruce’s mouth quirked a little. “I don’t suppose Ramen noodles count?”

“Umm, no,” Tigra said, and hopped onto a nearby stool while Bruce cleared his lab bench, and Clint dialed in the pizza delivery number, cradling the phone to his ear while waiting for an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tangent Bonus Image: [Tigra and Hulk](http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/tagged/tigra)


	8. When I Wake Up

Aside from periodic notes to the other guy, Bruce was starting to feel as though maybe he should just—put some kind of distance between himself and the business that the Hulk got up to. It wasn’t even like Bruce did anything in the field of heroics. He was a scientist, really. He worked in the lab. Tigra and Clint came to visit, bringing food or the intent to drag him out for movie night or something. 

Bruce didn’t mind.

He even didn’t mind when Peter seemed to be emboldened by the shift in team dynamics, squirreling in every once in a while to watch, or to talk with Bruce about what he was doing. 

Maybe it helped, having people around that he could…that he was starting to trust enough to support him.

Other times, Bruce didn’t know how he was supposed to handle their prying into his life.

\--

“Look,” he said in frustration, while Tigra was gently pawing at his knee, while he was trying to organize data about gamma-radiated cells. “Greer, maybe I honestly, really don’t want to have much to do with the other guy. I can’t even really talk to him, not in any direct way.”

“But he’s… nice,” Tigra said. She’d stopped pawing at him and had now tucked both hands under her rear, as if to avoid the temptation of doing anything else with them. 

“Hulk does seem to be mellowing out these days,” Peter observed. “It’s weird.” 

Bruce did not even know when the kid had come into the room. 

“Okay, everybody out,” he said, pointing at the door. “I’ve got work, all right? I’ll see you both at dinner.” 

He watched Tigra and Peter reluctantly leave, and he tried not to feel too guilty about it, those trouble-makers. 

\---

Bruce simply… didn’t want to have to think about it, anymore, as if that was such a huge crime. 

There was so much regret associated with everything about that other guy, anyway. Thinking about their childhoods. Thinking about being on the run, and all of that destruction that had been associated with the Hulk, all of that rage. Even thinking about all of Bruce’s efforts to rid himself of the Hulk. There was so much regret. 

Sometimes he thought: he just wanted to be left alone, and then he’d wonder about the lie of that. 

\---

His bedroom was starting to accumulate Hulk’s belongings. 

There were books, and audio tapes, and the occasional DVD; Clint seemed to be influencing Hulk, with his tastes in adventure and drama films. Sometimes Bruce had to organize the clutter, and the shapes of these new objects felt strangely both invasive and innocent, sitting next to his own textbooks and journals and equipment. 

Bruce did not want to examine too closely this presence of someone else, or even those feelings that sometimes seemed to ghost against his mind: like someone else’s dreams and sentiments, all castles made of clouds. 

\---

“Has anyone ever told you how repressed you are?” Clint asked over breakfast.

They seemed to have gotten to the point where Clint was getting to be a little fearless about how he talked to Bruce. 

He’d been more careful about his words for a while, but now all the old brazenness was returning. 

Bruce was waiting for the timer to ring on the toaster oven.

“I don’t need anyone telling me that,” he said. “I already know.”

\---

He made himself watch the video footage and vlogging recorded by Clint and Hulk and Tigra because it was good to be… aware of what was going on around him.

At the same time, there was a sense that this really didn’t have anything to do with him, right?

Right.

\---

Tigra curled up in his lap after dinner.

She was very heavy. 

Bruce could not even bring himself to mind, as he read the Daily Bugle, one hand on her shoulder, and then Peter came up behind them to complain about the state of current news media. 

\---

The other guy who seemed to be the unspoken presence wherever Bruce went had nothing to do with him.

Right.

\---

Tigra patted gently at the edge of Bruce’s newspaper, and said, “Have you ever gotten any more sense of Hulk in there with you? Hulk says…today he said he got a little sense of you. ‘Puny Banner. Always making problems,” he said. I think he meant—he thinks you create a lot of your own problems.”

“Hmmm,” Bruce said.

“He’s… actually a pretty smart guy, that Hulk. You’d be surprised.”

Bruce wasn’t. 

\---

Once, Bruce woke up in his bed, and when he looked over the edge, he found Clint asleep, half-holding a book. The title read: _Matilda_.

Clint jerked awake though, at the sound of Bruce getting out of bed. He was a light sleeper, apparently. Bruce was not surprised. 

“Hey,” Clint said, rubbing at his eyes. “Hulk wanted company before he went to sleep. Sorry, guess I feel asleep in here too.” Then he looked up at Bruce, mouth quirked, “But, hey, better than finding me asleep in bed with you, right?”

Bruce stared at Clint. 

Clint finally realized what had come out of his mouth.

“Right,” he said. "Yeah."

He left pretty quickly after that.

Bruce did not even know what to do with these people. 

He sat back down, rubbing a little at his chest. There was a lingering, soft feeling in there, like fondness, and Bruce was nearly certain the feeling did not belong to him. 

There were a lot of things that did not belong to him. 

There were a lot of feelings he had in his basket, associated with the people in his life, but this feeling did not belong to him.

For a strange moment, he almost wished that it did.

He let that moment go. 

\---

“Hulk said, he had a dream about you,” Clint said.

The two of them were up on the roof. They were testing some force fields that Bruce had helped Tony develop, as part of the mansion security in case of attack. 

Clint took aim with his most basic arrow, and then let it loose. 

The arrow shattered on impact. 

Clint whistled, and then reached into his quiver for a sturdier arrow to test. 

“Yeah?” Bruce asked. 

“Yeah. He said it was completely boring. “Banner always works in lab. _Boring_ ,’” Clint said, his impression of the other guy quite canny. 

Then Clint said, “Hey, do you ever—”

“No,” Bruce said, without even waiting for the question.

\---

He lied. 

\---

On a Tuesday, a week later, Bruce woke up as if from someone else’s dream. 

\---

He was sitting on the floor of what looked like a hospital waiting room, and taking in that chemical smell. Tigra was sitting beside him. Iron Man and Captain America were talking to hospital staff. Tigra said, chest pressed against her knees, “Don’t worry; Clint’s fine: just a sprained ankle and some scrapes and bruises. Tony and Cap were arguing over whether they should wring his neck now, or wait until later, for disregarding orders about going into that building.” When Bruce looked over at her, still uncomprehending, Tigra said, “I’m sorry, I’m being confusing; Hulk rescued Clint from a collapsed building. That’s why we’re here, in a hospital.” She looked tired, and dirty, and was huddled up close to Bruce. 

Sometimes Bruce remembered that he was nearly fifteen years her senior, and also that right then he was half-naked, and probably as filthy as she was, but he put an arm around her shoulder, and she sort of lay against him, limp like a tired cat. 

\---

It really did feel as though he had just woken from a dream. 

The dream had been full of a strange and tender feeling that did not belong to him, of crouching hugely over someone and _hey big guy you found me_ and a bundle of fur clinging round his neck. 

Already, the sensation of it was falling apart, and Bruce struggled to hang onto the recollections, before finally letting them go.

He felt something else then, though, heavy and regretting, and he knew that was completely his own. 

After a long, quiet while, he said: “You should tell Hulk, I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Oh.” 

Tigra reached up then to cuff him, gently, on the chin. “You should tell him yourself, dummy,” she said, sniffing a little, and then she was jumping up when Clint came into the room, hobbling on crutches, and Clint looked relieved when she didn’t knock him over in her affectionate enthusiasm. 

Clint looked over at Bruce too, as the other man stood up. “Hey, science guy,” Clint said, mouth quirked to one side. 

Bruce shrugged, and tried to keep his pants from falling off his waist. Then he went over and said, “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Yeah?” Clint asked, but then he seemed to see something else in Bruce’s face because he said, “Yeah. Yeah, well thanks.”

Tony came over to tell them that the car was waiting outside. Cap was giving Clint the evil look, or the patriotic one, whichever came first, but he was helping to carry Clint’s gear, and Tigra was clinging to Bruce’s arm, and somewhere, distantly, Bruce could nearly, _almost_ , feel Hulk’s soft, protective affection for the scene like a sigh. 

\---

They went home.


End file.
